Tuesday, January 18, 2011

This sort of thing might come in handy for your investigations. Thanks to Troy Rank, an engineering student at RIT and electric bike tinkerer, for showing me this. The chart lists the aerodynamic drag co-efficient and a host of other performance factors for human powered vehicles. I'm not sure of the true source of all this data but will duly give credit if I find out.

20 comments:

I'm pretty sure that table comes from the amazing book "Human Powered Vehicles" published by Human Kinetics back in 1995. However, I no longer have my copy, so I can't confirm that.http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1416582.Human_Powered_Vehicles

it's interesting to note the small difference in drag coefficient between the "perfect bike" (no bike) and the "aerocomponent". sounds like all the marketing by the manufacturers about their bikes being the "fastest" is just hooey. i'm not doubting the advantages of a dynamic component like wheels, but have always believed that rider position is where the differences are really made.

I have a suspicion (but can't confirm it) that the chart is from a 1978 paper by C.R. Kyle, V.J. Caizzo, and M. Palombo, titled "Predicting human powered vehicle performance using ergometry and aerodynamic drag measurements" given at the Human Power for Health, Productivity, Recreation, and Transportation conference, Technology University of Cologne, September that year.

Kyle is (or was) in the Mechanical Engineering Dept at Cal State Long Beach and has published further work on this topic. The latest that I can find (which may not be that recent, but still) is titled "Aerodynamics of Human-Powered Vehicles" and published in the March 2004 Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (Vol. 218 Part A: Journal of Power and Energy)

it's interesting to note the small difference in drag coefficient between the "perfect bike" (no bike) and the "aerocomponent". sounds like all the marketing by the manufacturers about their bikes being the "fastest" is just hooey. i'm not doubting the advantages of a dynamic component like wheels, but have always believed that rider position is where the differences are really made.

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Wow! What an insightful and informative article! Very interesting! Its good to know about these things! It might just improve a riders ergonomics, thus improving their speed and time. Great blog - Good to see you're back!